1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a hard disk drive (HDD). More particularly, the invention relates to a HDD containing a built-in Disk Operating System (DOS) boot program and a related firmware download method.
This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119 to Korean Patent Application No. 10-2006-0078695, filed on Aug. 21, 2006, the subject matter of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
2. Discussion of Related Art
In many applications, conventional HDDs download software components of constituent firmware (hereafter referred to as “downloading the firmware” from the cache memory of a host device (e.g., a Personal Computer) using a so-called PIO data transfer. In many contemporary implementations, this download of microcode is defined by an industry standard known as the Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA) specification.
After downloading the firmware, the HDD often deletes existing data stored in flash memory associated with the HDD's microprocessor, writes the downloaded firmware to flash memory as new data, and performs verification procedures. In this manner, firmware is downloaded to non-user regions, such as a maintenance region, of one or more disks within the HDD.
After downloading the firmware, the foregoing writing and verification procedures require a “re-start” procedure (e.g., the HDD and incorporating host device cycle power OFF and ON) to initialize system data by reading the data newly stored to the non-user region of the disk.
Unfortunately, the HDD enters a non-accessible state, wherein the HDD can not respond to commands received from the host device, during the OFF/ON power cycle. However, conventional operating systems (OS) typically found in host devices, such as Windows™, must be “normally” closed in order to properly perform an OFF/ON power cycle. In order to normally close a running OS, read/write operations or swap file dump operations from various system files must access the HDD. In such circumstances, downloading the firmware may be impossible.
Therefore, many conventional host devices store a system download utility in the HDD which boots in DOS mode. Such download utilities are capable of running in response to execution files contained in a peripheral data storage device, such as a floppy disk. However, many contemporary host devices no longer come with a floppy disk drive. As a result, host device users may fail to download new firmware to the hard disk drive. Alternately, where firmware downloads are possible, contemporary host devices may require some proficiency in DOS command operations by the end user. Absent such proficiency, a technician must be retained to perform firmware downloads. Any one of these alternatives is distasteful to most host device users.